Golden Triangle Tour 4 Days

Your Payless Tours India driver meets you at Delhi airport or your hotel, holding a sign with your name, and your guide joins soon after. The morning starts at Jama Masjid, built by Shah Jahan between 1650 and 1656 from red sandstone and white marble. Its courtyard can hold around 25,000 people at Friday prayers, and if you are fit enough to climb the southern minaret, the view takes in the rooftops of the old city and the Red Fort beyond. Visitors must remove shoes and cover arms and legs; robes are lent at the gate. Your guide explains how the mosque, the fort and the market street below were planned together as one imperial capital, called Shahjahanabad.

Next comes the rickshaw ride. You sit behind a local rider who pedals you along Chandni Chowk, laid out in 1650 by Jahanara Begum, the emperor's favourite daughter. The lanes branch off by trade: Kinari Bazaar for wedding trims, Dariba Kalan for silver, Paranthe Wali Gali for fried flatbreads cooked the same way for more than a century. The ride ends near Khari Baoli, often called Asia's largest spice market, where sacks of red chillies, turmeric and cardamom line the pavement and the air makes most visitors sneeze. On the way you pass Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib, a Sikh shrine, and the outer walls of the Red Fort, which closes on Mondays.

After lunch, the afternoon moves to the wider avenues of New Delhi. You stop at Raj Ghat, the black marble platform marking the spot where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated in 1948, set in a quiet lawn beside the Yamuna. Humayun's Tomb comes next, a garden tomb finished in 1570 whose double dome and water channels shaped the design of later Mughal buildings. The day ends with a slow drive down Kartavya Path between India Gate and Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace designed by Edwin Lutyens. Your driver returns you to the hotel in the early evening, leaving time to rest after a long first day. Overnight stay in Delhi.

After breakfast you check out and leave Delhi on the Yamuna Expressway, a six-lane toll road that bypasses most of the old highway traffic and reaches Agra in about three and a half to four hours. Your driver will suggest a tea stop at one of the large food courts along the way, which have clean restrooms. You arrive in Agra around lunchtime and check in. Agra is famous for petha, a translucent sweet made from ash gourd and flavoured with rose or saffron, and your guide can point you to one of the older shops near the Sadar Bazaar if you want to try it.

In the afternoon you cross the river to Itmad-ud-Daulah, built between 1622 and 1628 by Empress Nur Jahan for her father, Mirza Ghiyas Beg. It was the first Mughal tomb faced entirely in white marble, and the walls are covered in pietra dura: tiny pieces of cornelian, onyx and jasper cut to form cypress trees, wine jars and flower vases. Because the building is small and rarely crowded, you can stand close to the walls and see how each piece is fitted. Your guide explains why historians see this tomb as the bridge between the red sandstone of Humayun's Tomb and the pure white of the Taj Mahal, completed about twenty-five years later.

Late in the afternoon you drive a short distance along the north bank to Mehtab Bagh, a Mughal garden laid out directly opposite the Taj Mahal. From the riverside fence you look across the Yamuna at the back of the tomb, with its four minarets lined up against the sky. As the sun drops, the marble shifts to orange and then a cool blue-grey, and the reflection in the river is clearest when the water is calm. The garden is far quieter than the main complex and suits photographers with longer lenses. You return to the hotel for dinner on your own account and an early night, because tomorrow begins before dawn. Overnight stay in Agra.

Your guide collects you about forty-five minutes before sunrise so you can be near the front of the queue at the East Gate when it opens. Security is strict: no food, tripods or large bags, and the ticket includes shoe covers and a bottle of water. Walking through the red sandstone gateway and seeing the tomb framed in its arch is the moment most people remember longest. Inside the garden your guide explains the symmetry of the plan, the Quranic calligraphy that appears to stay the same size as it rises, and the false cenotaphs above the real graves in the crypt. Note that the Taj Mahal is closed every Friday, so this visit is never scheduled on that day.

Back at the hotel you have breakfast and check out, then head to Agra Fort, a crescent of red sandstone walls about two and a half kilometres around. Akbar began it in 1565, and his grandson Shah Jahan later added white marble pavilions. Your guide leads you through the Amar Singh Gate, past the Jahangiri Mahal with its carved brackets, and into the Khas Mahal, where the emperor's private quarters face the river. The visit ends at the Musamman Burj, an eight-sided tower where Shah Jahan was held by his son Aurangzeb for the last eight years of his life, able to see the Taj Mahal but never return to it.

By late morning you are on the road to Jaipur, a drive of four and a half to five hours. The landscape changes as you enter Rajasthan: flat wheat fields give way to scrub, low rocky hills and villages where women in bright odhnis carry water pots. Your driver can stop at a roadside dhaba for lunch, where dal, rotis and sweet lassi are cheap and freshly made. You reach Jaipur in the late afternoon and check in. In the evening you could take an autorickshaw to Raj Mandir, a 1970s cinema with a pink meringue-style interior where Bollywood films play to cheering crowds. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

The morning starts early with the drive out of the walled city to Amber Fort, about eleven kilometres north, where the ramparts climb the ridge above Maota Lake. Raja Man Singh began the palace in the late sixteenth century, and later rulers added the courtyards in turn. Your guide takes you through the Ganesh Pol gateway, painted with frescoes, into the Diwan-i-Aam and on to the Sheesh Mahal, the mirrored hall where convex glass pieces set in plaster catch even weak light. A jeep can take you up the slope if you prefer not to walk. On the way down, stop at the edge of Man Sagar Lake to photograph Jal Mahal sitting in the water.

Back in the Pink City, painted terracotta in 1876 to welcome the Prince of Wales, you pause opposite Hawa Mahal, a five-storey screen of pink sandstone with 953 small windows built in 1799 so royal women could watch the street unseen. The best view is from one of the cafés on the upper floor across the road. Next is the City Palace, where part of the complex is still lived in by the former royal family, and the Mubarak Mahal displays court costumes and textiles. Finally, Jantar Mantar holds the stone instruments of Sawai Jai Singh II, including the Samrat Yantra, a 27-metre sundial accurate to about two seconds.

After a late lunch near the old city, perhaps a plate of dal baati churma, you set off for Delhi, a five to six hour drive on National Highway 48. Your driver will stop for tea along the way and will drop you at your Delhi hotel or straight at the international airport for a late-night departure. Please share your flight details at the time of booking so that the Jaipur morning can start earlier if needed. Your guide can also suggest a short visit to one of the block-printing showrooms on Amer Road before you leave, if you want to carry home some hand-printed cotton. This ends your golden triangle tour 4 days with Payless Tours India.